Apartment Living in Singapore

The landscaping takes up eight-hectares, with the arrangement of the buildings maximizing the presence of the surrounding tropical floral by introducing extensive roof gardens, landscaped sky terraces, cascading balconies and lush green areas. The continuous landscape is also projected vertically, from the planting of green areas in open-air basement voids, through balconies and rooftop gardens. The private balconies give apartments large outdoor space and personal planting areas. Cascading gardens spill over the facades of the buildings drawing a visual connection between the elevated green refuges and expansive tropical landscape on the ground.WHEN I FIRST SPOTTED THESE SINGAPORE APARTMENT TOWERS ON A WEB SITE ABOUT ARCHITECTURE, I WAS IMPRESSED AT THE ORIGINALITY. Then, the more I looked and thought about it, I began to imagine what these might be like to live in such a place in 30 to 50 years. Slowly, I began to see something that reminded me of a gigantic and dismal living environment—low-income high rise projects stacked one on top of the other. It is a bit scary, actually—like multi-unit mobile homes arranged by a giant. In the next paragraph you can read a description of the place by the builders.

“Designed by Ole Scheeren, partner of OMA, the interlace adopts a new residential typology which breaks away from the standard isolated, vertical apartment towers of Singapore. The large-scale complex takes a more expansive and interconnected approach to living through communal spaces which are integrated into its lush surrounding greenbelt.

Thirty-one apartment blocks, each standing at six-story’s tall and identical in length, are stacked in a hexagonal arrangement to form eight large open and permeable courtyards. The stacked formations allow light and air to flow through the architecture and surrounding landscape. Developed by Capital and Hotel Properties LTD., the interlace covers 170,000 sq. feet of gross floor area and will house 1,040 apartment units of varying sizes.”